Health-care official confident about future sign-up numbers

Meager sign-up numbers and initial problems with the federal website handling enrollment for Illinois’ health insurance marketplace haven’t discouraged potential applicants, according to a marketplace official who visited Springfield Tuesday.

By Dean OlsenStaff Writer

Meager sign-up numbers and initial problems with the federal website handling enrollment for Illinois’ health insurance marketplace haven’t discouraged potential applicants, according to a marketplace official who visited Springfield Tuesday.

“Everybody who wants to get enrolled, who needs help getting enrolled through December, or through the next couple of months, will be able to do that,” said Brian Gorman, director of outreach and consumer education for Get Covered Illinois.

Gorman was in Springfield to visit with local not-for-profit agencies employing some of the state’s more than 1,500 federally funded enrollment specialists, known as navigators or in-person assisters.

The HealthCare.gov website that Illinoisans must use for enrollment in private insurance and federal subsidies through the Affordable Care Act is working much better than in October and November, Gorman said.

Illinoisans had to resort to the federal website because the Illinois General Assembly hasn’t voted on legislation that would have enabled the state to operate its own marketplace.

Monday is the deadline for consumers to enroll in a health plan for coverage that would begin Jan. 1. Enrollees must pay their first premium by Dec. 31.

Enrollment will continue after Dec. 23. People who are uninsured have until March 31 to enroll in coverage and avoid potential tax penalties.

Gorman said he isn’t worried that the younger, healthier people the marketplace needs to be successful by spreading the financial risk will fail to return to the website if they had a negative experience previously.

“The people that we really are counting on to enroll typically don’t buy stuff 2 1/2 months in advance,” he said. “As long as the website continues to work for a vast majority of Illinois residents — and we’ve seen that both anecdotally and in snapshots we’ve heard — people will get the help they need.”

Lagging numbers

Data released last week by the federal government indicate 7,043 Illinoisans signed up for private coverage through HealthCare.gov in October and November, the first two months of enrollment. That total was less than 30 percent of what the federal government originally projected for Illinois by that point.

Rather than dwelling on those disappointing statistics, Gorman and Mike Claffey, a top aide to Gov. Pat Quinn, pointed out that 67,036 Illinoisans have submitted applications on behalf of 124,252 people to the marketplace, with 40 percent qualifying for financial assistance.

Those applicants haven’t made final decisions on plans, but that’s understandable because selecting insurance is important and complicated, Gorman said.

“That gives you an indication of the kind of interest there is in purchasing these plans,” he said, adding that the state recently kicked off its first statewide TV advertising campaign encouraging Get Covered Illinois sign-ups.

Commercials being aired as part of an initial advertising buy of nearly $1 million — money from the federal government — can be viewed at bit.ly/GetCoveredVideos.

Gorman said Quinn administration officials are “proud of the capacity we’ve built throughout the state” with navigators and other people offering free sign-up help, and consumers are responding.

“All of these groups, all their appointments are filled,” he said.

Skewed estimates

Gorman said Quinn officials and other organizations wanting the marketplace to succeed will require months, and potentially several years, to reach most of the people potentially eligible for help through the health care law.

Consultants retained by the state with federal funding had estimated total enrollment in the marketplace would be at about 486,000 people in 2014, with the total ramping up to 1.4 million by 2020.

But it wouldn’t be fair to hold the state accountable for the original first-year estimates because of changes since those estimates were made, Gorman said.

For one thing, the estimate included 149,000 people being covered through a health insurance exchange specifically designed for small businesses. The Obama administration, because of technical issues, has delayed online enrollment in the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) until November 2014, and the SHOP program in its first year isn’t as attractive as it could be in future years.

The first-year estimate also doesn’t include the impact of the recent decision by the administration to allow health insurers to offer 2013 health policies in the small-group and individual markets for one more year even through those policies don’t meet all ACA requirements, Gorman said.

The extension will allow many people who would have sought coverage in the marketplace to keep their current coverage.

Also part of the ACA is a mostly federally funded expansion of eligibility for Medicaid, and Illinois has received more than 206,000 new Medicaid applications so far. The total includes an early expansion of Medicaid in Cook County.

The state has projected that 296,400 people will be added to the 2.7 million Illinoisans currently on Medicaid in the first year as a result of the eligibility expansion and people signing up during the publicity blitz who would have qualified for Medicaid under the old requirements.